Charmander said:
Hellebore said:
But that's what happens when unnatural toughness doubles damage reduction and you want soopamarinebolterdeath, ridiculously over the top weapon stats that make anti tank weaponry look stupid.
Hellebore
I think we got it, you don't like the characteristics or weapon damage. I'm not sure that's why the Hive Tyrant died in one turn, but we get it.
These discussions keep cropping up, so I'm not sure people really do. Pages of ways around it when the easiest fix is to change the underlying cause.
This happens in the tabletop rules as well, where a bad rule is patched over rather than actually fixed. Look at the AP problem from 4th ed 40k. It was starting to dominate the game, but instead of fixing the underlying problem, how AP worked, they instead simply increased cover saves to 4+ and gave them out for a wider range of conditions.
The net result was to reduce the effectiveness of AP, but by putting a patch over the top rather than fixing the actual problem..
Personally I just don't like patching rules because you almost always end up with knock on consequences. Increase the resilience of the hive tyrant just to protect it from heavy botlers and everything else finds it even harder to beat. Nerfing the heavy bolter really isn't enough, because of the extra abilities that can stack on top of it. And obviously the heavy bolter needs to be better than a bolter, so you can't just put it down to bolter stats.
To patch to rules nerfing the devestator's bonus abilities, or prevent the other talents that are usable by other marines but also work with heavy weaponry from working with heavy weapons.
it just seems pointless to me to spend ages debating how to patch the problems in the rules when it could be solved by going to the root cause and fixing that instead.
Hellebore

MILLANDSON said:
Hellebore said:
People are defending the design of this vehicle far too much, to the point of appearing as apologists.
So now you've basically gone "you can't defend the design even if you do like it, because then you are an apologist fanboy"? I thought you were above such ad honinems Hellebore, but I guess I was wrong.
i said appearing as apologists. Would you like me to call your statement a strawman fallacy because it wasn't what I said?
Not if people are going to use reasons that are wrong, no. You can say you like the out of scale design, but you can't say the out of scale design is in keeping with other marine vehicle designs, because they aren't. It's pretty simple, measure the sizes of the parts of the storm raven and see how big they are in relation to each other and then see how that is unlike their other designs. Its tail fins alone are around a fifth the size of the overall vehicle.
Like it all you want, it won't change the facts of its scale, or that those scale problems are not found on other vehicles and if they are, certainly not to this degree. It's a parody of a thunderhawk.
It's very disappointing because they have shown that they can do so much better. I really don't understand how it ended up so out of scale given the huge quantity of available material they had to work from. The Aquila lander is ugly, but at least it's scaled correctly.
When the main argument of pro stormraven people is 'you hate the marine aesthetic' which is a strawman of most people's arguments (like mine - it's out of scale which ISN'T a marine design aesthetic) I don't mind calling people apologists at all. Certainnly if I'm getting strawmanned rather than people addressing the argument it makes people appear like apologists to me.
The fact is, any time someone dissents about something the mighty GW have done, dozens of people jump up in defence, regardless of legitimacy. I'm tired of having to defend my own position against people who start from the premise 'GW can do no wrong' and work from there. GW can and have done wrong and the stormraven is an inexplicable example.
They have great looking thunderhawks, valkyries and so on. Yet with the stormraven it's like they took a decade backwards in design. The wings are far too far backwards, too high and the front of the vehicle is out of scale with the rear. The landing gear are too close together which makes it look like a plane resting on its nose.
I'm disappointed that with such a great vehicular design in the thunderhawk they could botch it so badly with the stormraven. It's almost like they had an area they wanted it to cover and squashed it to fit without rescaling everything to that size. Or it was designed by committee.
There is no reason for it to be out of scale gievn the precedent of other vehicles or that the marine design aesthetic doesn't call for such gross distortions of size. Hence why I can't see the arguments people use in support of it as being true, as there is no precedent or basis to them. Which is why they seem like apologising to me.
Hellebore

MILLANDSON said:
Hellebore said:
it looks like rather than shrinking a thunderhawk they just chopped the middle out and stuck the front to the back.
And that isn't an entirely Imperium/Ad Mech STC thing to do? That's exactly what they'd do.
I suppose that's why the rhino looks like a shortened land raider, or the land raider looks like a longer rhino.
People are defending the design of this vehicle far too much, to the point of appearing as apologists. The overall design is out of scale, that is fairly objective. The individual components on the vehicle all look by themselves good. But they are too close together or simply not scaled to each other correctly.
All it needs to be good is better scaling. It doesn't even need a new design. It looks like a vehicular charicature, which is odd given the designs of other 40k vehicles aren't anything like it. It looks like it's been designed by committee. Move things around within its silhouette and it will look much much better.
Hellebore

MILLANDSON said:
Aye, just having the Hive Tyrant run towards them over clear ground is playing the Hive Tyrant as dumb, which they really aren't.
Same argument can by applied the other way around - space marines just standing around shooting a massive monster like the hive tyrant to death is pretty dumb too.
If a hive tyrant has to work clever to avoid being killed by a space marine with a heavy bolter, then those marines should have to work hard to avoid being killed by the hive tyrant. A hive tyrant should have far more chance of charging the enemy than a marine.
But that's what happens when unnatural toughness doubles damage reduction and you want soopamarinebolterdeath, ridiculously over the top weapon stats that make anti tank weaponry look stupid.
Hellebore

MILLANDSON said:
I pretty much agree with Hostower, I like the model and it is exactly what I expected a smaller-than-a-thunderhawk-transport would look like
Then you really don't have much of an imagination then.
The individual sections of the model by themselves look great. But combined it looks like rather than shrinking a thunderhawk they just chopped the middle out and stuck the front to the back.
There are a multitude of conversion photoshops out there, for my part, the minimum changes required to make it look good enough to want are in the PS I made on warseer:
www.warseer.com/forums/showpost.php
The dakka one above is a really great one too, but requires more work.
Of course, people buying a horribly designed model just to convert it to look better are still telling GW that the model sells. If you want to ensure GW don't make models that horrible, buy a different model and convert it instead. Like say the valkyrie. Valkyrie sales increasing when the stormraven comes out should get the message across.
Hellebore

Unless you had really low BS there would rarely if ever be a point to using Full Auto with those rules unless you had unlimited ammo.
BS31+10 for SA gives a 41% chance to hit with at least one shot, on FA it would be a 51% chance. However most FA weapons fire 10 rounds a burst so you lose your ammo really quickly.
It's more economical requires less reloading to fire SA - reloading cuts into the rounds you can shoot in which makes up for the lower chance of hitting on SA, so SA becomes superior as you don't reload as often and subsequently don't use up as much ammunition. Unless you have several hundred rounds on you FA is going to drain you in only a few rounds and then you'll be spending rounds reloading not doing anything.
This isn't true for the gimpy weapons that don't fire 10 shots on FA. This is something I've never liked with the rules - SA and FA are abstract rules in and of themselves which are completely independent of the shots being fired.
Thus you could have a weapon that had the profile S/1/1 and thus get +20 to hit with one shot.. This not only allows a higher chance to hit it also increases your ammo expenditure to hit ratio. FA 4 shots means if you hit twice you've only wasted 2 shots as opposed to the EIGHT you'd waste with other weapons.
If however the number of shots you fired reflected directly on your increase to hit, then it would balance all levels evenly. Say 2x the number of shots as a bonus. Thus someone FA with 10 shots would get the current +20 to hit, whilst someone only firing 4 rounds would get +8 to hit.
But then I'd prefer if SA was 'burst fire' and FA was 'suppressive fire' with better rules than the current suppressive fire rules, like the people in the area suffere a negative to Pinning tests equal to 2x the shots, or perhaps even the same as a negative to dodge tests as bullets are flying everywhere.
Hellebore

BrotherHostower said:
Except, it is better, and on the tabletop it DOES shoot better (24inch range, all the time, 2 shots able to hit, where the bolter, and twin linked bolter, can only ever get 1 hit at 24 inches if they do not move, though it has better accuracy since you can reroll your to-hit, which is nicely represented with the +20 to hit from twin-linking). I'm not actually taking the Imperial Religion dogma as truth, I'm saying that you, and I, are not gunsmiths in the 41st millenium, we do not deal in weapons that fire .75 calibur explosive shells some 38,000 years in the future. The setting tells us that the Stormbolter, for whatever reason (I was simply giving you a possible in-game reason), IS better than a twin-linked bolter, and has been since 3rd edition. It's a setting where there's psychic powers and magic and demons, so yes, I can "bull" it away as the guns have magical spirits in them that make them better if I so choose, and the rules in every instance back it up (since 3rd ed, I never played 2nd or original RT), just like you can BS plenty of stuff in say, the Star Wars future-past setting with space wizards can explain things away with the Force. This isn't Star-Trek where everything absolutely must align with psuedo-science or physics.
Better is a relative term and the basis of your argument uses abstract games mechanics that differ throughout editions. Combi bolter and storm bolter background has not changed, but the rules representing them have.
In 2nd ed a combi bolter rolled once to hit and if it did, caused two wound rolls and two armour rolls. In 2nd ed a storm bolter rolled once to hit and rolled a sustained fire dice to see how many hits were caused, which was a 33% chance of 1 shot, 33% chance of 2 shots and a 16.6% chance of 3 or Jam. The combi bolter had the same statistics in every other way. It was guaranteed to produce 2 hits, whilst the storm bolter was not. The storm bolter gave up reliability in order for the potential to produce more shots.
The background for the combi bolter/storm bolter was:
"Over the course of the Horus Heresy the combi-bolter emerged as the most dependable and tactically flexible weapon. It was subsequently fitted with better ammo hoppers and its rate of fire was increased to create the storm botler"
So using one edition of abstract mechanics to represent background is just as subjective as another edition. In the current edition the only thing Frag grenades do is stop you counting as behind an obstacle when charging. So should Deathwatch just chuck the damage of frag grenades and make them a bonus to charging enemies in cover? No, because abstraction is no basis for objective conclusions.
The Storm rule in the RPG is a far better representation of how a twin linked weapon works in function (two shots fired at the same tine within close proximity of each other) than the Twin-Linked rule is. The Storm bolter is designed as a faster firing twin linked weapon effectively.
Therefore, the Twin-linked mechanics should be dropped entirely as it doesn't represent a twin linked weapon particularly well, the Storm mechanics should be used instead and a Storm Bolter should then just be a twin-linked S/3/6 bolter that weighs less. A combi bolter is then just a bolter with the twin-linked rule that weighs twice as much and is probably unreliable due to the non specific construction.
Because that's what combi-bolters and storm bolters are described as.
Hellebore

BrotherHostower said:
Except, there IS a difference between a twin-linked bolter and a storm bolter. The fluff says it's a better version, if you need Gamesworkshop to hype up a bunch of technobabble to have that sink in, I don't know what to say. You could go as far as to say, the Machine Spirit of a Stormbolter is a single spirit that controls the firing of two bolt shells at precisely the same moment and target, as opposed to a twink-linked bolter, where two machine spirits must work in tandem, and thus, may not work together as well (or at all). On the tabletop, the stormbolter is simply more effective than a bolter, and more effective than twin-linked bolter. It is a fair representation (especially now that one degree of success on dodge dodges a double hit from storm).
It can be better without having to shoot better. Lighter because it's custom built to work that way, reliable for the same reason. But there is absolutely NO reason that two bolters with their barrels side by side 1" apart won't fire and hit exactly the same times as another one where those bolters were welded together.
Machine spirits in guns? Really? You're going to take the relgious ignorance of the Imperium as gospel truth? Two triggers being pulled simultaneously will shoot two shots simultaneously, it only takes a small rod of metal to join them together. Pulling the trigger has nothing to do with any machine spirit, superstitious or computer.
A storm bolter is a custom built combi bolter. The only functional difference between the two is that a combi bolter is two separate weapons side by side (like what Ripley did in Aliens with the pulse rifle and flame thrower, albiet a bit more sophisticated) whilst a storm bolter is a custom built gun body that encloses two barrels.
Two barrels side by side firing at the same time. One built that way specifically so it can lose a lot of weight and be designed to function that way, the other two guns side by side.
The way they fire will not change no matter how you bull it away.
A storm bolter historically was just a permanent combi bolter. It wasn't ever anything special, just the official model of combi bolter prototypes. It fires the same rounds down the same barrels the same distance apart at the same time.
EDIT: If you want to get technical the 'storm' rule in the RPG is exactly the same as the 'twin linked' rule in 2nd ed 40k - fire once and hit twice. Which makes sense because you're firing two guns at the same time a few inches apart - the shots will land a few inches apart so they will almost always hit the same thing.
Hellebore

N0-1_H3r3 said:
Narkasis Broon said:
I think this is an important true point. a storm bolter seems to be like a bolter that has been modified to have the capacity to fire on the run easily.
In the terms of an abstracted wargame, yes. Back in 2nd edition 40k, the Storm Bolter had a sustained fire dice (1-3 shots each time you fired), while a Bolter only fired once (not once if you moved... just once), with Space Marines (including Traitors) able to fire twice with any Bolter, Bolt Pistol or Storm Bolter if they stayed still (Rapid Fire was a special rule for Space Marines, not a standard feature of the guns).
In background terms, a Storm Bolter is the end result of many centuries of development, starting with the combi-bolter still employed by the Traitor Legions. In its original form, the Storm Bolter was two bolters stuck together to increase firepower. The Storm rule represents that quite nicely - it literally doubles the firepower of a Bolter, as its twin chambers allow it to fire twice as many shells in the same space of time. It might not represent what the wargame does, but I personally can't fault the representation of the background.
And yet for some reason, a twin linked weapon doesn't work the same way, despite being pretty much the same thing. They never really explained how a storm bolter is different enough from a twin linked weapon that it somehow is better. Two barrels firing shots at the enemy? Two bolters stuck together will do that. A storm bolter is just a custom built twin linked bolter, there is no operational difference between a storm bolter and two bolters stuck together fired sided by side. The only thing that might be different is that a combi bolter is less reliable and weighs more. The actual firing mechanism can't be different enough that it warrants such different rules.
Hellebore

Well that's not in keeping with the RoF of a heavy bolter in the other two games. I mean, even a slow RoF is still going to put out hundreds of rounds. If you take the 10 shots as literal, then that's ~120 rounds a minute - slow by anyone's standards. 6 shots at 72 rounds a minute is pathetically slow.
See my previous post about why a heavy bolter is broken.
Here is the suggestion I made in that post to fix charges:
EDIT: And as for Lightning Attack, the problem I think here is what the charge is trying to accomplish. Charges are performed to smash into the enemy, knock them back and to gain the initiative. This only doesn't work if the target is ready and using defensive weapons like spears. Therefore, the Charge action should have an opposed Strength test component where you attempt to push your target back, if you succeed they count as having spent a Minor Action. This then prevents the target from using all their attacks on the turn they were charged, evening the playing field somewhat. You can have it always happen, make it an opposed Ag test or whatever, but basically if a charge negated the ability for the target to major action full auto fist then it will fix it somewhat.
Hellebore

The heavy bolter is broken because they scaled astartes bolters up and it needed to be better than them (it only does 5 extra damage than the BOLTGUN). The reason they scaled astartes bolters up? Unnatural Toughness and Strength (with a bit of too much armour), specifically, the fact that Unnatural attributes are MULTIPLED for no reason.
As a marine has it, their enemies are going to need it or they won't be able to last long against them. Which means marines are then guaranteed to be shooting at something with TB8 and 6+ armour, so they need guns that will acutally hurt.
If Unnatural attributes came in single digits, +1 to SB for example, you can then scale everything back. A marine may only then have Unnatural Str/T 2 in which case their average starting damage reduction is 6. Remove the extra armour on the marine's torso (or make it ablative like in Inquisitor where it only works on the first hit) and now a space marine has DR of 14 on all locations. Reduce their starting Toughness down to 31-35 average instead of 41 (just like the deathworlder they are most often pulled from) and you've dropped their DR down to 13.
Oh but now my precious space marines aren't EPIC!? Well that's easily fixed. Orks now have T35 UT 1, for a total DR of 4, Tyranid warriors have UT2 and 5 armour, for a total DR of 11 instead of the absurd 16 currently. They keep their current wounds.
Scale everything back and you fix several problems at once - a bolter doesn't have to do 2d10+5 damage to be awesome, the 1d10+5 or 2d10 of the angelus was plenty. It can go back to 4 pen. The heavy bolter can then go back down. Plasma and melta can stay as they are.
Suddenly all the weapons look like they should in comparison to each other and you don't have absurd damage reduction cuz my muscles can bounce off bullets. EPIC is relative, if you everything else down, a marine without DR18 won't be crap.
All this because Unnatural multiplies your attribute. Going from TB4-8 in one shot is silly, especially if you're taking these things as advances. Ascension x4 Agility death cult assassin? Why was that necessary? Because a single level of Unnatural is all you can measure it by, so if you want something with better UAg than something else it needs more levels - more levels results in more multiplication until you've got a Deathcult assassin with AgB20....
Just look at the crappy weaponry carried by tyranid fodder troops. In the setting these are just infantry weapons used against guard with lasguns. But that won't work when fighting DR18 space marines, so now we have devourers with obscene damage simply because they're competeing with marine Toughness.
So, change Unnatural to single digit increases (hell, grant 2x the bonus as a test bonus too if you want), reduce Unnatural down to sane levels and EVERYTHING will follow on from there. Unnatural strength can go down because something with Unnatural Toughness now isn't as tough, weapons can go down because they don't have to be overinflated just to have a chance of hurting targets etc.
EDIT: And as for Lightning Attack, the problem I think here is what the charge is trying to accomplish. Charges are performed to smash into the enemy, knock them back and to gain the initiative. This only doesn't work if the target is ready and using defensive weapons like spears. Therefore, the Charge action should have an opposed Strength test component where you attempt to push your target back, if you succeed they count as having spent a Minor Action. This then prevents the target from using all their attacks on the turn they were charged, evening the playing field somewhat. You can have it always happen, make it an opposed Ag test or whatever, but basically if a charge negated the ability for the target to major action full auto fist then it will fix it somewhat.
Hellebore

It's really only necessary for games that require absurd amounts of book keeping and rules tracking - like Dungeons and Dragons. Just watching my friend GM that game sends shivers up my spine. The sheer amount of EFFORT required for such little reward is horrifying.
Hellebore

I have bumped heads with people on this forum about female space marines. There is no background evidence that a space marine (primarch geneseed modified) can be female, there never has been (the 'evidence' of power armoured female models in the 80s were never labelled as marines regardless of what some people claim).
There is however plenty of evidence of biologically modified humans, whether abhumans, temple assassins or ad mech projects. Thus a modified female warrior wearing power armour is not impossible and should exist somewhere. They will act and appear in always like a space marine, they just won't actually BE a space marine. Unfortunately most people insist that they BE LITERAL space marines, it's not good enough otherwise.
I also personally don't like female space marines in the same way I don't like Red Orks, male sisters of battle or Tyranids that like to debate philosophy. The setting is defined as much by its limitations as it is by its allowances. Remove limitations and it just becomes an unregonisable mess.
Now having said that, the OP made it explicitly clear this was a non canon discussion. He wasn't trying to shove it down people's throats or claim that it was the truth.
Therefore, with that massive CAVEAT, the only people posting in here should be those who have something constructive to say WITHIN the parameters set in the original post. This isn't a flame thread about whether female marines are real, the evidence for it or the reasons they SHOULD exist. That was made explicitly clear in the original post.
Hence why I, despite not being partial to the idea in the first place, made a constructive post early in the thread. I do not agree with the OP, but as they clearly prefixed the whole thing with 'unofficial, non canon, help please' I am more than happy to flex some creativity to provide suggestions under those parameters.
Anyone who cotinually whinges in this thread is trolling and going off topic becuase the original topic has nothing to do with whether female marines exist, should exist, or need to exist.
Hellebore

Harry of the Clock said:
Troll harder.
Including female space marines is like excluding females in L5R from the bushi class.
Or creating a Tau Inquisitor of the Ordo Xenos.
You have Sisters of Battle in the Blood of Martys so use them if you want female mahreens rather than doing something that is equal to being a furfag.
Cheers.
The OP clearly stated that this was non canon and that he would like some ideas. Either give him ideas or don't post in the thread.
Now for my part, I don't think female marine chapters would need 'feminine' chapter names. Star Wardens, Eagle Claws, Shadow Hate etc are all fine. You don't need 'hellcats' for female marines. They're marines first, females a distant second.
Some of those suggestions from RPG.net seem a little too 'unique snowflake'. Marines are marines, there aren't any that just stick other creatures' genes into their holy geneseed to gain Kroot-esque powers. Their demeanours and abilities derive from the genomes of their primogenitors, the Primarchs (Primatrixes?).
I did have an idea ages ago about the primarchs all being female brood mothers that produced female drones to fight for them. The Emperor was the male 'king' that mated with them. When a new chapter was created the queen would gestate another queen to go start it. the custodes were designed to be compatable with the queens so after the emperor's ascension to the golden throne the custodes began making annual pilgrimages to the chapter houses of the astartes to mate with the chapter mistresses and further the chapter's line.
Pretty much any marine chapter now could be female. The femaleness isn't what makes a marine, so Ultramarines led by Roboutina Guilliwoman would be the same as male Ultramarines.
So the only things that I can think of that would be unique for female marines are the ceremonies of the organ implantation. Females already possess more internal organs than males so they'd have to be modified or removed to fit the extra kidneys liver etc that goes into a marine. Perhaps some chapters offer their hysterectomy up as an offering, their sacrifice to be mothers to become mothers to the Imperium and die in her defence?
This is the sort of thing I'd expect the Sororitas to go through, they are soldiers for life where reproduction is not an option. I can imagine that sort of thing being a highly ritualised 'joining' for an inducted sister, sacrifice of the flesh to fight for the emperor. It's the sort of self sacrifice the sisters would do and it's in keeping with the brutal surgical methods performed on astartes initiates as well.
Hellebore

linearblade said:
I kinda see why people like the +1 increase as opposed to the multiplier increase, but really the major problem again with unnatural stats is when they are applied to certain classes that have balance issues...
See I don't think so. Multiplying TB results in multiplying damage and that screws the core of the system completely.
We have to make space marines tougher than humans. The only rule that does this is unnatural toughness. Therefore marines are now TB8. They wear awesome armour too, so now we need to give marines guns that can actually hurt themselves. Woops now we have guns that are better at taking out tanks than plasma guns.
Now there are guns that shouldn't really have a set of damage dice to roll, because they're going to kill almost all enemy targets in a single shot.
If for example, marines got +1TB from their biscopea and +1 from their haemastamen, then they'd have a TB of around 6 or so. A normal human couldn't get that, so would never reach it. A hive Tyrant might have 4 levels of UT, or maybe 5. Now a hive tyrant looks scary compared to a marine, without requiring a massive arms race in weapon damage.
The weapon damages in DH would be fine for most of the setting if Unnatural Toughness didn't multiply the damage reduction of targets like it does.
So in my opinion, reducing unnatural characteristics to single point advances solves more problems than it causes. After all, there's nothing stopping you giving something 8x unnatural toughness to simulate its 'dreadnought' like physique.
Therefore, single digit increases are superior in all ways, because they can represent ranges between normal and double and still represent double without REQUIRING double.
hellebore